I’ve said it many times before. Australia is the best damned country in the world with the exception of some island nations in the Caribbean with some very liberal banking laws.
For all that Australia can be a confusing place, especially for Australians. There are three tiers of government, all pretty much worthless and in various stages of decrepitude shuffling between inertia, chaos all the way along to abject failure. We have a corporate world blagging its way around a laughably cobbled together regulatory system while trying not to snigger too much. There’s a mutant media that routinely crucifies people, more often that not for no apparent good reason and a taxation system that, frankly, I gave up on a long time ago.
Last week the Turnbull government announced a range of changes to the 457 visa scheme and rounded it off with tightening requirements for citizenship. At a presser and then again in an interview with Leigh Sales on the ABC, our Prime Minister, resplendent in an electric blue suit, equivocated in response to what were some fairly mild inquiries on his thoughts on Australian-ness and what he considered might be Australian values.
Full column here.
Got an email from Cricket Australia this afternoon, flogging tickets to ‘the Men’s Ashes’.
This has to stop.
Why?
What’s your point honey?
Hadn’t heard about a death in the cricket team. Who’s ashes are they? Nice of CA to invite you to the wake. None of that ‘Keith Richards’ malarkey I hope.
Sad day Jack, Louie Richards passing away at the ripe old age of 94. He lost his bid in recent years to get a gig in the Hall of Fame, but a lot of the punters would have opened the door for him.
His commentary back in the old VFL days were made of legend, mixed metaphors on demand. He could make Peter Landy speechless, and that was an achievement in itself. Drew Morphett was ABC champion, but Lou turned footy into entertainment.
The only thing Lou and I have in common is the name, sort of. He was born Lewis, morphed into Louie and finished at Lou. I was named Louis, but as a kid in a tough Perth neighbourhood thought Lou was a bit safer.
My lasting memory was Louie sitting on the back of the outside broadcast van at the SCG, enjoying a smoke and a cup of coffee. He was happy to be disturbed by anyone passing by, having a chat and letting out that raucous laugh that was his trademark.
We can’t make characters like that anymore, even if they did play for Collingwood.
Here it is, Mr Insider, THE Labor ad causing all the kerfuffle. Sir Robert Menzies would be delighted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RrudO9OX8U
And thus followed one of the great Shorten moments post-kerfuffle when he said he would tell the Labor Party to do the ad again. Bill, you were in it, standing alongside the ‘diverse’ crowd. You were not CGI’d into the frame. Did you not notice anything odd during filming? IMO the ad, marked for broadcast in Queensland, deliberately featured all of those grinning white faces. Bill got caught out trying to pull a swifty.
Whachu trying to say?
Dunno Jack, you’re giving them a lot of credit for being that subtle. I think it was a stuff up, and now the finger pointing has begun. Back in the day when I had to approve ads for the school (and even rewrote some) we had an actual policy doc about how many of which people we had in our ads. I’m sure it’s still around somewhere.
No, it was deliberate, mate. Welcome to Labor’s dark arts factory which ironically in this case churns out an all white message.
It’s the dirty little family secret that the labour movement is always trying to keep hidden: they rely on the votes of deplorables as much as the other mob.
I spend a bit of time through work associating with miners, timber-workers and tradies; the sorts that the ALP still relies on heavily for votes and funding. You can bet these blokes are a lot less impressed with the presence of a Chinese lesbian on the front bench than the so-called “progressives”, and as far as endangered species go their only concern is how tasty the critters might be.
But I’m sure Power Bill will finesse this somehow. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you are a total moral vacuum. The man would sell his own mother to Somali slavers if he thought it would put him in the big chair.
Vale Lou Richards
Lou Richards, vale
Lou Richards RIP.
Indeed. Many great memories from my childhood of World of Sport with Lou and the panel on Sundays and the eminently watchable League Teams he presented with Jack Dyer and Bobby Davis. Vale Lou.
Thinking last Saturday afternoon might have tipped him over the edge…
Hope there is something in the federal budget Jack for us pensioners something to add to the PAL to make it tasty.
If you’re eating PAL you need to get off the machines ……
Jack The Insider says:
MAY 7, 2017 AT 2:39 PM….Source?
The video is on Catherine King’s Twitter…scroll down
https://twitter.com/CatherineKingMP
I have copied the audio and sent it to your Gmail account
President Elect Emmanuel Macron at 39yo, Mr Insider, the youngest leader of France since Napoleon was Emperor we read. What can one say but “Vive La France” a wonderful country indeed.
http://tinyurl.com/kz5w2zx
Not tonight, Emmanuel you haven’t finished your homework and I’ve got to catch up with my husband! As Hank B says “Vive La France”. I hope he’s the goods, and wish him well, as that marvellous country was the best thing since sliced cheese, until the socialists said yes to every night, Josephine. The young, Macron has a big job in front of him. A job a future PM of Oz will have to deal with if we don’t act now. Unlikely to happen when we have a nation propped up by those suckling on the teat of govt largesse. Ask old mate Bassman how much coin he is receiving now that he is a father of youngsters. And i’m not knocking him for that; from his posts he spends his money wisely and frugally, as do I.
In France, I got the anecdotal impression, if you got a gig in the public service (and that may have been a wider demographic than ours) , then you lived a life like a pig in mud, or something similar. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the unemployed received free Gitanes, baguettes, beret’s, bicycles and brie and …
stinky result for le pen…unlucky
The two most frightening words for the unemployed – youth and old – that a new leader can utter “Embrace Globalisation”
Was it 1/3 of the vote she got? If so, it’s not to be sneezed at or ignored. That sort of “right” is not going away, except perhaps in the way HKJack refers. Possibly a fair number of Jewish people in that dept. A disunited Union?
One third? Literally against the droveurs chien? Pah!